The New Yorker Radio Hour The Company Behind the A.I. Boom
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Dec 26, 2025 
Stephen Witt, a technology journalist and author of "The Thinking Machine," shares insights on NVIDIA's rise as a giant in the AI chip industry. He discusses how their innovative parallel computing chips synchronizing with neural-net software changed the game. Witt delves into Jensen Huang's vision and leadership, which prioritize engineering excellence. The conversation touches on the geopolitical implications of Taiwan's manufacturing strength and China's ambitions to replicate NVIDIA's success. Witt also speculates on the future of AI in everyday life, including personalized nonfiction books.
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Hardware Made The AI Revolution Possible
- NVIDIA's GPUs unlocked modern AI by matching neural-net software with parallel computing hardware.
- That unexpected hardware-software synergy accelerated AI by roughly a decade.
Bedroom Supercomputer Breaks Barriers
- In 2012 Alex Krizhevsky used two NVIDIA gaming cards in his bedroom to train a breakthrough neural net.
- That low-budget setup broke AI barriers and drew researchers to NVIDIA's ecosystem.
Engineer-First Leadership Drives Strategy
- Jensen Huang leads NVIDIA from an engineer's mindset, prioritizing what computers can do next.
- He expects breakthroughs first, assuming profits will follow once capability is proven.